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New Directors/New Films · 2024

New Directors/New Films 2024

Full line-up

Programme

24 films · 9 reviews

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All, Or Nothing At All

The fustrated realities of Generation Z in unforgiving contemporary China.

(Country: China; Year: 2023; Director: Jiajun Oscar Zhang; Writer: Ying Bian, Jiajun Oscar Zhang; Stars: Yu An, Xiaoyi Chen, Yanqi Chen, Cuishan Liang, Ruguang Wei)

North American premiere

Blackbird Blackbird Blackberry

Review preview for Blackbird Blackbird Blackberry

The unadorned observation of the physical aspects of the relationship in which middle-aged bodies are shown without artifice is one of the most hypnotic aspect of Naveriani’s vision.

Richard Mowe · 4 out of 5
The story of a 40something in a dead-end town who discovers love for the first time.

(Country: Georgia; Year: 2023; Director: Elene Naveriani; Writer: Elene Naveriani, Nikoloz Mdivani based on the novel by Tamta Melashvili; Stars: Eka Chavleishvili, Temiko Chinchinadze, Anka Khurtsidze)

Full review See: Interview with Elene Naveriani about Blackbird Blackbird Blackberry

New York Premiere

Blaga's Lessons (Urotcite na Blaga)

Review preview for Blaga's Lessons

Beneath the intense lead performance and the minimalist but effective camera work, there is a rigid moral waiting to be unearthed.

Sergiu Inizian · 2.5 out of 5
A woman's moral compass starts to slip after she is conned out of her savings by a phone scammer.

(Country: Bulgaria, Germany; Year: 2023; Director: Stephan Komandarev; Writer: Simeon Ventsislavov, Stephan Komandarev; Stars: Eli Skorcheva, Gerasim Georgiev, Rozalia Abgarian, Ivan Barnev, Stefan Denolyubov, Ivaylo Hristov)

Full review

New York Premiere

Cu Li Never Cries (Cu Li Không Bao Giờ Khóc)

After inheriting a pygmy slow loris from her long-estranged husband, a woman clings to dwindling ties to her past while her niece prepares for her wedding and worries about the future.

(Country: Vietnam; Year: 2024; Director: Pham Ngoc Lan; Writer: Pham Ngoc Lan, Nghiem Quynh Trang; Stars: Minh-Châu, Xuan An Ngo, Ha-Phuong, Kieu-Trinh, Phí-Linh, Cao Sang, Hoàng-Hà, Hien Thanh, Van Thai Nguyen, Quôc-Tuân, Thuong Tin)

North American premiere

The Day I Met You

Microportrait of two school colleagues.

(Country: Brazil; Year: 2023; Director: André Novais Oliveira; Writer: André Novais Oliveira; Stars: Renato Novaes, Grace Passô)

New York Premiere

A Different Man

Review preview for A Different Man

Slippery in terms of genre and form, the writer/director’s satire puts all his characters and, by extension, us under close scrutiny.

Amber Wilkinson · 4 out of 5
Aspiring actor Edward undergoes a radical medical trial to drastically transform his appearance. But his new dream face quickly turns into a nightmare.

(Country: US; Year: 2024; Director: Aaron Schimberg; Writer: Aaron Schimberg; Stars: Sebastian Stan, Renate Reinsve, Owen Kline, Adam Pearson, Marc Geller, Lawrence Arancio, Billy Griffith, Eleanore Pienta, John Keating, Juney Smith, Sergio Delavicci, Miles G. Jackson, Martin Ewens, Neal Davidson, Trenton Hudson)

Full review

New York Premiere

Dreaming & Dying (Hao jiu bu jian)

Three middle-aged friends reunite for the first time in years. Each of them sets out to confess unexpressed feelings, but their vacation takes a surprising turn.

(Country: Singapore, Indonesia; Year: 2023; Director: Nelson Yeo; Writer: Nelson Yeo; Stars: Peter Yu, Doreen Toh, Kelvin Ho)

North American premiere

Exhibiting Forgiveness

Utilising his paintings to find freedom from his past, a Black artist on the path to success is derailed by an unexpected visit from his estranged father, a recovering addict desperate to reconcile. Together, they learn that forgetting might be a greater challenge than forgiving.

(Country: US; Year: 2024; Director: Titus Kaphar; Writer: Titus Kaphar; Stars: André Holland, Andra Day, Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, Jaime Ray Newman, Matthew Elam, G.L. McQueary, John Earl Jelks, Tia Dionne Hodge, Chip Carriere, Ian Foreman, Martha Morgan, Daniel Michael Barriere, Justin Hofstad)

New York Premiere

Explanation For Everything (Magyarazat Mindendre)

A high school student's graduation exams spark scandal.

(Country: Hungary, Slovakia; Year: 2023; Director: Gábor Reisz; Writer: Gábor Reisz, Éva Schulze; Stars: Adonyi-Walsh Gáspár, István Znamenák, András Rusznák, Rebeka Hatházi, Krisztina Urbanovits, Eliza Sodró, Lilla Kizlinger, Dániel Király, Gergely Kocsis, Tamás Fodor, Péter Tarján, Zsuzanna Szager, Péter Szeiler, Tóth Péter, Tünde Bacskó)

New York Premiere

Foremost By Night (Sobre Todo De Noche)

When Vera was young, she wasn’t able to take care of her son and had to give him up for adoption. Years later, when she tried to find him, the institutions told her that her file did not exist. She has continued to look for him ever since. When Cora was young, her doctor told her that she could not have children and that only by adopting could she start a family. Cora has dedicated her life to teaching piano lessons and caring for her adopted son, Egoz, about to turn 18. Now, the paths of these three characters are about to cross.

(Country: Spain, Portugal, France; Year: 2023; Director: Víctor Iriarte; Writer: Isa Campo, Víctor Iriarte, Andrea Queralt; Stars: Lola Dueñas, Manuel Egozkue, Ana Torrent, María Vázquez)

New York Premiere

Good One

On a weekend backpacking trip in the Catskills, 17-year-old Sam contends with the competing egos of her father and his oldest friend.

(Country: US; Year: 2024; Director: India Donaldson; Writer: India Donaldson; Stars: James Le Gros, Danny McCarthy, Sumaya Bouhbal, Lily Collias)

New York Premiere

A Good Place (Ein Schoner Ort)

The chickens are suspicious, the relationships are dubious, and the businesses are shady. Margarita and Goodness wonder where and why people are disappearing. Meanwhile the radio is persistently sending messages and the world is awaiting the launch of a rocket that will take humans to the edge of the solar system.

(Country: Germany; Year: 2023; Director: Katharina Huber; Stars: Voodoo Jürgens, Andreas Schneiders, Clara Schwinning, Céline de Gennaro, Julian Sark, Jannik Mioducki, Mik Quantius, Jamal Albashaan, Leonard Harms, Andreas Oestern, Maria Lorenzen, Meryem Erkus, Dolunay Gördüm, Julia Suermondt, Nicole Wegner)

North American premiere

Hesitation Wound

Review preview for Hesitation Wound

Hesitation Wound is a melancholy piece of cinema but such an accomplished one that it is a delight to watch.

Jennie Kermode · 4.5 out of 5
A criminal lawyer faces difficult moral and emotional choices.

(Country: Turkey, France, Romania, Spain; Year: 2023; Director: Selman Nacar; Writer: Selman Nacar; Stars: Tülin Özen, Görkem Ipek)

Full review

New York Premiere

Intercepted

Review preview for Intercepted

The silence between the calls serves as a space for the horror of them to fully take shape in the viewers’ mind.

Amber Wilkinson · 4.5 out of 5
The destruction caused by the war against Ukraine is shown in lengthy tableaux. Intercepted phone conversations between Russian soldiers and their families set up a parallel world.

(Country: Canada, France, Ukraine; Year: 2024; Director: Oksana Karpovych; Writer: Oksana Karpovych)

Full review See: Oksana Karpovych on aggression and resistance in Ukraine

North American premiere

A Journey In Spring (Chun Xing)

Review preview for A Journey In Spring

A Journey In Spring is one of the most impressive contributions to date in the new Taiwanese cinema.

Jennie Kermode · 4.5 out of 5
An old man has depended on his wife over the years, when she suddenly passes away, he puts her into an old freezer and goes on living a seemingly peaceful life. But the arrival of his son and daughter-in-law brings change.

(Country: Taiwan; Year: 2023; Director: Peng Tzu-Hui, Ping-Wen Wang; Writer: Yu Yi-Hsun; Stars: Kuei-Mei Yang, Jieh-Wen King)

Full review See: Interview with Peng Tzu-hui and Wang Ping-wen about A Journey In Spring

North American premiere

Lost Country

The sensorial, emotional and political formation of a boy born at the beginning of the Eighties in Tito's Yugoslavia, growing up in a Yugoslav Communist family as the political system around him radically changes.

(Country: France, Serbia, Luxembourg, Croatia; Year: 2023; Director: Vladimir Perisic; Writer: Vladimir Perisic, Alice Winocour; Stars: Boris Isakovic, Jasna Djuricic, Marija Skaricic, Jovan Ginic)

New York Premiere

Malu

Review preview for Malu

Freire captures not just the emotional but physical force of these relationships, with the women coming to blows, their acts of cruelty to one another as powerful as their acts of love.

Amber Wilkinson · 4 out of 5
Malu - a mercurial, unemployed actress living with her conservative mother in a precarious house in a Rio de Janeiro slum - tries to deal with her strained relationship with her own adult daughter while surviving on memories of her glorious artistic past.

(Country: Brazil; Year: 2024; Director: Pedro Freire; Writer: Pedro Freire; Stars: Yara de Novaes, Juliana Carneiro da Cunha, Carol Duarte, Átila Bee, Marcio Vito, Marina Provenzzano, Felipe Haiut)

Full review See: Pedro Freire on bringing his mother's tempestuous relationships to the screen

New York Premiere

Meezan

A portrait of the fishing industry in Iran’s Khuzestan province - home to Abadan, the first oil company-town in the Middle East

(Country: Canada, Iran; Year: 2023; Director: Shahab Mihandoust)

US premiere

Of Living Without Illusion (Und dass man ohne Täuschung zu leben vermag)

Suburban summer heat. Merit, Eva, Lion, Rose and David cautiously wind around their conflicted relationships.

(Country: Germany, Switzerland; Year: 2023; Director: Katharina Lüdin; Writer: Katharina Lüdin; Stars: Godehard Giese, Wolfgang Michael, Jenny Schily, Lorenz Hochhuth, Anna Bolk, Unica-Rosa Blaue-Poppy, Pauline Frierson, Marvin Clausen, Oska Melina Borcherding)

North American premiere

Omen (Augure)

Review preview for Omen

The powerful forces of family and fable, old and new, intertwine and vie for supremacy in Belgian-Congolese director Baloji’s visually striking debut.

Amber Wilkinson · 4 out of 5
When a man who was cast out as a child after being considered a sorceror returns home, he faces prejudice.

(Country: DRC; Year: 2023; Director: Baloji; Writer: Baloji, Thomas van Zuylen; Stars: Marc Zinga, Lucie Debay, Eliane Umuhire, Yves-Marina Gnahoua, Marcel Otete Kabeya)

Full review

New York Premiere

Otro Sol

The maybe-true tale of thief Alberto Candia, who stole priceless ancient artifacts from a cathedral in Cádiz, Spain.

(Country: Chile, Belgium, France; Year: 2023; Director: Francisco Rodriguez Teare; Stars: Iván Cáceres, Claudio Palape, Juan Pizarro, Thomas Quevedo, Teresa Ávalos)

North American premiere

The Permanent Picture (La imatge permanent)

In rural Southern Spain Antonia, a 15-year-old mother, disappears in the middle of the night. 50 years later and much further North, Carmen, an introverted casting director, is looking for people to share their experiences when arriving in a new city. In her search, she meets Antonia, whose impulsiveness intrudes into Carmen’s solitude. Who said time heals all wounds?

(Country: Spain, France; Year: 2023; Director: Laura Ferrés; Writer: Laura Ferrés; Stars: María Luengo, Rosario Ortega, Saraida Llamas, Claudia Fimia, Mila Collado, Dolores Martínez)

North American premiere

The Rim (La Parra)

A man who is scraping by becomes the inexplicable victim of mistaken identity.

(Country: Spain; Year: 2024; Director: Alberto Gracia; Writer: Alberto Gracia; Stars: Alfonso Míguez)

US premiere

Stress Positions

Review preview for Stress Positions

A hilariously biting film that allows its characters to be their bitter, failed selves rather than part of a political message.

Jeremy Mathews · 5 out of 5
Terry Goon is keeping strict quarantine in his ex-husband’s Brooklyn brownstone while caring for his nephew - a 19-year-old model from Morocco named Bahlul - bedridden in a full leg cast after an electric scooter accident. Unfortunately for Terry, everyone in his life wants to meet the model.

(Country: US; Year: 2024; Director: Theda Hammel; Writer: Faheem Ali, Theda Hammel; Stars: John Roberts, John Early, Theda Hammel, Amy Zimmer, Faheem Ali, Qaher Harhash)

Full review

New York Premiere